


As Sweet as Balm, As Soft As Air, As Gentle

by Hornet394



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Theatre, Antony and Cleopatra, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 20:19:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7984867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hornet394/pseuds/Hornet394
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since my lord is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra (Act 4, Scene 11)</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Sweet as Balm, As Soft As Air, As Gentle

Since my lord is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra (Act 4, Scene 11)

 

Yixing sat in front of the antique mirror, carefully tracing kohl into the dark wells surrounding his eyes. He hummed a small excerpt out of Anthony and Cleopatra under his breath.

 

"Husband, I come: Now to that name my courage prove my title!  I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life."

 

It had been exactly ten years, since he left.  Does his promise still hold?  Yixing stared at his reflection and fell silent.

 

He had been exactly like this too, ten years ago, heavy make up crusted on his features, body adorned with rustling fabrics and silk, slender wrists and ankles decorated with jewelry, a white dress over his frame to mimick a feminine body, waiting to perform his very first show in a rather dinghy theatre.  It was that same performance that he had first seen him.  Yixing knew him just as Lieutenant Oh, then, but his ramrod posture, along with the applause of the audience is all Yixing remembers of his debut performance after so many years.

 

Once off stage, Yixing took off his costume and removed his make up, before peeking out from backstage to spy at the man he had seen amongst the audience.  Coincidentally the Lieutenant's gaze fell in his direction, deep, dark eyes full of admiration.  

 

Yixing didn't even know why, but he just panicked, and he quickly turned around to press a hand to his erratically fluttering heart.  By the time he was able to look into the audience, the Lieutenant was long gone.

 

Disappointment settled through Yixing's mind, and he pouted and stomped his feet a few times in frustration.  He even stood on tiptoes a few times to scan the crowd again, but there was no sign the man at all.  He sighed in defeat.

 

"Are you looking for me?" His clear voice rang out from behind him.  Yixing froze, and was momentarily frightened of turning his head to look back.  "Who are you?" He asked tentatively.

 

"Why don't you see for yourself?" There was a tinge of amusement in his voice, a smooth sound that appealed to Yixing's ears.

 

He's right, though, to think of it.  It's rather silly, Yixing admits.  What is there to be afraid of?  He turned his head slowly, and Sehun's gentle smile and posture entered his line of sight, as if placed in slow motion.

 

"How did you know I was looking for you?"  Yixing was pleasantly surprised by the fact that he hadn't left.

 

"I guessed," Sehun smirked, and that was the only thing he offered.

 

From that day on, Sehun would come every few days to the troupe, along with new trinkets that the General had given him.  Yixing would act for him every time, perform soliloquys with a smile on his face at the sight of Sehun sitting on the rocking chair, slender fingers tracing the words onto the table.

 

Of course, given the proximity the two shared, there were bound to be rumours, even from amongst the troupe.  They say that Zhang Yixing and Oh Sehun have an abnormal relationship, but Yixing would just smile and ignore them everytime he heard such words.

 

Time passed as it does, until one day Sehun barged into his quarters, taking Yixing into a hug from behind as the slighter man was trimming some hedges, and wouldn't let go no matter what Yixing said.  Amused, Yixing leaned back on Sehun's shoulder as he asked him what happened.  Sehun rested his head on Yixing's own, and finally spoke after a long, pregnant silence.  "There's war coming up.  The Great General's taking everyone."

 

Yixing's smile froze on his face.  They stood there for a long time, just like that, until Yixing collected himself and turned to bury his face in Sehun's chest.  "When?" He croaked out.

 

"Tomorrow." Sehun said reluctantly and sighed heavily.

 

The ugly word slammed itself on Yixing's heart like a hammer, and his teary voice shoke as he asked, "Why… why is it so urgent?" 

 

"The Great General didn't say anything more except for me to pack." Sehun hadn't felt as terrible as he heard the glumness in Yixing's voice, but he couldn't even tell the man in his arms when he would be able to come back.    No matter how reluctant he felt, he was a soldier, and he couldn't disobey military orders.

 

"Sehun, Sehun, Sehunnie…"

 

Sehun's name poured out of Yixing's mouth like a flood, and his tears followed in a similar manner if not more overwhelming, drenching Sehun's neat military clothing.  Yixing had always called him Lieutenant in the past, Lieutenant Oh when in jest, but he feared that if he didn't call him Sehun now he would never have a chance in the future.

 

"I'm here, please don't cry…" Sehun hadn't known what to do with Yixing's tears, all he could do was hold him closer as if he could just let Yixing melt inside him, become one with him.

 

Yixing suddenly pushed Sehun away to look him in the eyes seriously.  "I'm going with you!" He said determinedly, "I'm going to pack now!"

 

"You know it's impossible," Sehun clapsed Yixing's hands in his own, "The military life isn't for everyone, alright?  You stay here and wait for me to come back, okay?"

 

"Why not?"  Yixing flung Sehun's hand away and shouted loudly, "Cleopatra accompanied Antony as he marched over Rome, she's a woman and could do that, why can't I!" 

 

"Yixing, calm down!" Sehun clutched Yixing by the shoulders, "I don't want you to suffer with me!  You stay here peacefully, comfortably, and wait for me to come back to you."

 

"But when are you going to come back?  I'm afraid… I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to afford the wait…"

 

"Ten years.  I swear, I will return to you within ten years."

 

Yixing sank back into the present with a jolt, and he put down the pen in his hands.  Ten years had passed quickly like a rabbit jumping through the crevices of time, too quickly, that sometimes, Yixing gets scared.  Ever since Sehun left, Yixing had ceased to live, instead spent his days wandering around like a lost child.  Alcohol was his companion day after day, and the familiar prose that used to drip from his lips vanished into nothingness.

 

It took a letter from Sehun, half a year after his departure, for the former Yixing to come back.  He became a man that needed no rest, no sleep, constantly asking for the chance to go on stage, because he wanted Sehun to be able to watch his favourite theatres as soon as he returned.

 

But even as his voice went raw with overuse, hoarse, Sehun had never appeared.

 

The mass that made up the audience changed constantly, but the men on stage stood constant over the years.  Yixing's smile twisted into one of self-mockery.  He's not going to come this year.  For ten years, every single day, Yixing had scoured the audience desperately for the man that had taken his heart away, but with the passing of time Yixing found the image he had in his mind blurred, unclear.  What would he look like now, Lieutenant Oh?  Yixing wouldn't know.  Sehun is a famous Commander now, after all.

 

"Saucy lictors will catch at us like strumpets," Yixing starts to speak, standing up from his seat, silk-clad arms coming up in the motions of Cleopatra, "And scald rhymers ballad us out of tune.  The quick comedians extemporally will stage is and present our Alexandrian revels."  The figure in the mirror is still as captivating and graceful as before, but the man who sits in the rocking chair, tracing words into the dust, he's no longer there.  

 

"Antony shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness in the posture of a whore.

 

"It's been ten years, why aren't you here?" Yixing mutters weakly into the mirror, and he falls back into the chair like a puppet with his strings cut.  Two clear teardrops roll down his cheekbones.

 

Since that day, Yixing never stepped on the stage again.  Many rich men of power extended lucrative offers to see him again, but Yixing turned them all down politely.  When they asked, merely he answered that he had lost his purpose of acting.  There was no point in acting anymore.

 

"Daily news, daily news! Commander Oh Sehun assassinated!  Daily news, daily news!"

 

But just a few days after Yixing stopped acting, an article took the entire city by storm - Oh Sehun was assassinated.

 

Yixing was surprisingly calm despite the news, to the degree that it worried others.  All he did was let out news that he was going to perform in Antony and Cleopatra again.

 

The theatre is full of people.  Everyone who is someone is here, everyone wants to know what Zhang Yixing is doing.

 

He wears the same clothes as he did ten years ago, the same music, the same settings and props, and he does the same show for the audience that comes and goes.

 

On Cleopatra's deathbed, Yixing begins to cry.  "You still broke your promise, didn't you, Sehun?  If you never will come back to me, then, then I'll just have to follow you…"  He mumbles between the hiccups, his brain filled with nothing but Sehun, Sehun, Sehun.  He takes the cup of poison from where it is offered despodently.

 

"Come, thou mortal wretch, with thy sharp teeth this knot intrisicate of life at once untie: poor venemous fool be angry, and dispatch.  Oh, couldst thou speak, that I might hear thee call great Caesar ass unpolicied!  Peace, peace!  Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, that sucks the nurse asleep?  As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle- 

 

"O Antony! Nay, I will take thee too."

 

Sehun, are you waiting for me?  Yixing smiles, tragic beauty filling his features.  There is no snake, none that the troupe master would allow on stage, but the poison in his hands used to substitute looks awfully red then it used to.  He drinks it, swallows it whole, and a trail of blood seeps out of the corner of his lips, red blooming on the white fabric of his dress, spreading, growing.

 

I dreamt there was an emperor Antony.  Oh, such another sleep, that I might see but such another man!

…

 

From then on, there was no one in the city that uttered the story of Antony and Cleopatra with that lilting voice of his.

 

Think you there was or might be such a man as this I dreamt of? (Act 5, Scene 2)

**Author's Note:**

> Translated from a Chinese piece written by 沙城是總攻君 on tieba.com, with the original piece being not Antony and Cleopatra, but Farewell, My Concubine, a famous piece in Chinese Opera. A million thanks to the original writer and his amazing work, unfortunately I haven't figured out how to link a hyperlink to his work so just dm me if you want the original piece :) Hit me up on twitter @hornet394


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